Who's Dreaming This Dream
by ericajanebarry
Summary: About to become grandparents, Richard and Isobel uncover a shared secret that demands each one face up to old fears and unrequited longings. *NSFW for Things Married People Do*


**A/N: I've been a lousy excuse for a writer this year. I can't multitask (at least not where anything important is concerned) and so much of life seems to require my singular focus. But the end of the year is drawing nigh, and this piece was begging to be put to bed.**

**All I can say is that this is began as the result of a writer friend's lament. Her problem, as she told it to me, was that she always comes back to a certain theme when she writes Chelsie fic. I hardly see the possibility of there being anything problematic in her writing, period. And the theme that she identified is one that has struck a major chord with me in regards to Richard and Isobel. And so an idea was born.**

**The second half of this year has been all kinds of emotional highs and lows. Lots of seeing life come full circle and loss that hurts (and hurts more because of the idea that maybe it shouldn't hurt). LOTS of time spent with my grandmother, and the two of us reaffirming the best-friendship that's always been there. I don't know how I ever got so lucky, but she tells me things she can't tell anyone else. We've done a lot of reminiscing about our children's baby years (which is incredibly bittersweet as she's lost her youngest two out of five) and she's shared so many hard and wonderful and wise things that make me cry and hurt and think. So there's a lot of my heart in here, even if the circumstances aren't ones I've had personal experience with.**

**I realize this may be more than some of you (even those I count as dear friends) can do. No hard feelings, believe me. I also recognize that there are threads within this fic that I've already explored in others. Forgive me(?); I suppose I felt I left it somewhat unsatisfactorily before, or at the very least thought it wanted reexamining.**

**Thank you, D; thank you, Nanny; thank you, Pen. Friendship. Love. Acceptance. Admiration. Thank you, Ronnie Spector, for musical inspiration once again.**

**And thank you all for your support.**

**xx,  
~ejb~**

* * *

He gets quiet sometimes. Even for _him. _It's something she's learning to get used to. It doesn't always (or even often) mean there's anything wrong; he's simply been conditioned by a lifetime alone to keep his thoughts to himself.

In this case he's got a very good reason, what with all that she's come through. In light of the number of tears he's watched her shed, he's shocked that the thought ever occurred to him in the first place.

He supposes it's not altogether odd that it's come to mind again. It's been an exciting few months since Matthew and Mary announced that they were going to have a baby. Exhilarating is closer to the truth. Mary asked Isobel to oversee her care for the duration of the pregnancy, and they'd all four been together to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. And she's been positively beside herself, has Isobel, chattering nonstop about becoming a grandmother and how long she's dreamt of it; how it's one thing to deliver a patient's baby, and another entirely to know that that baby, whose first breath she'll get to witness, who will look into her eyes before anyone else's, is _her grandchild. _Her joy is palpable and effusive and addicting. He cannot get enough of her.

There's a photograph of her; one that, when they first began to get close to one another, he was drawn to. He was disgusted with himself for the longest time because of the intensely private nature of it. When she'd told him that it was taken by Reginald, he despised himself all the more.

It's wholly innocent. In it, Isobel, heavily pregnant with Matthew, is cradling her belly, smiling softly. Such love in her eyes; the sort of expression representing feelings only another expectant mother would understand. She's young and radiant and breathtaking.

And he should never have allowed the thought to linger, the very first time it passed across his synapses. _I wish I'd had that with her. _Because he _didn't. _It was her moment to cherish with her husband; the two of them were so very much in love and _it had nothing to do with him. _

Lately, in light of the news from Mary and Matthew, he feels less guilty when the ghost of the old longing knocks at his door. It's only natural, really. A biological imperative. Or … something. Right? But he hasn't told her. She's caught him staring a handful of times, grinning at him with a half-giggled, "What?"

He shrugs, every time. "Can't a man be enchanted by his beautiful wife?" It's the thing he's always said to her. He has, after all, habitually found himself struck dumb by her beauty, her goodness, the fact that she is _his. _Surely this is not far different, just the same sense of wonder taking on a different form.

So when he finds her, of an afternoon, stood on a stepstool in one of the guest bedrooms, taking measurements and singing softly to herself, he hangs back by the doorpost a moment.

_I'll make you happy, baby, just wait and see  
__For every kiss you give me I'll give you three  
__Oh, since the day I saw you  
__I have been waiting for you  
__You know I will adore you 'til eternity_

She bounces a little as she sings, and it's on the tip of his tongue to call out, "Be careful!" but she's practically oozing happiness and he dares not disturb the moment. Just this morning it was Mary's anatomy and gender scan, and once more they were a foursome finding out together that the baby is a boy. She'd have been thrilled either way, of course, but what a change it makes being able to refer to the little one as _him. _Makes it that bit more real, she told him in the car on the drive home. That, and (he suspects) she's thinking back to her own baby boy, and he's seen the pictures. He knows firsthand how close they are today, she and Matthew. How instinctively maternal she is. It's a quality that has served her well. Her son is thirty-six and still rings her up, just to chat. Her daughter-in-law has confided in her about dark corners of her upper-crust young adulthood. She's the one Mary calls for advice, not her own mother. He knows it's gone a long way to making her the brilliant physician she is.

And it's the only major facet of her life that he hasn't been a part of.

Her singing pulls him out of his head.

_So come on and, please  
__Be my little baby  
__Say you'll be my darlin'  
__Be my baby now_

"I know you're there, darling!" She half-sings. She's got both feet on solid ground again and is stood, hands on hips, studying the far wall intently. "Put the cot here, change table just there … yep. That ought to work." She's muttering to herself, jotting notes in a sketchbook and he gives up the charade, coming to stand behind her and replacing her hands with his own.

"Just what are you doing, Granny?" he half-whispers in her ear, pulling her back against him.

"Mmm," she moans softly, melting into his embrace. "Now that it's really real, I think it's only fitting for the baby to have a nursery here, don't you?"

He is pressing open-mouthed kisses along the back of her neck. "I say …"_ kiss _"… if it makes you so very happy …" _kiss _"… organising it, it's a brilliant idea."

She turns in his arms. "It's not a case of …" she looks down at the floor a moment, "... you know … Carts and horses?"

He starts to say, "What? No!" as if the entire notion is preposterous, and then he remembers that she was nineteen weeks gone herself when she lost her daughter. And hates himself all over again for the thoughts that haunt him. And wants to preserve the atmosphere, the air of celebration, without downplaying her concerns.

He settles on, "Well, you're Mary's doctor, you'd know best I should think. She's twenty weeks gone. Halfway there, and other than a bit of sickness in the beginning she's been perfectly healthy. Seems the perfect time to set the wee lad up with a room of his own chez Granny." And then he adds, "Is that what he's going to call you then? _Granny?"_

She wrinkles her nose adorably. "It sounds a bit oldish, doesn't it?"

He sways her a bit in his arms, his hands drifting down to her bum. "I rather think your problem is you're too sexy to be a grandmother."

She laughs. "Am I indeed. No grandfather I've ever seen is built like you, Major."

His face goes void of all expression.

"Richard? What's wrong?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing … _Nothing! _Only I've known all along that Matthew's baby would make you a grandmother … but I hadn't connected it. Me, a grandfather. And all this time I thought I'd missed my chance." He still does, in that one regard of which he doesn't dare speak. But his stupefaction has nothing to do with that.

"Well you'd better get used to it! Surely you know how much you mean to Matthew, after all these years." She brushes the backs of her fingers across his cheek adoringly.

He feels his ears get hot and shrugs. "That's a position I've not seen fit to slot myself into. Everyone knows you'd have never known me, if Dr. Crawley …" He can't say the words, has enough memories of her in the years of her mourning to make sure he never forgets how much in love with Matthew's father she was.

She breaks away from him, suddenly exasperated. "You know I've always admired your brilliance, but you're just plain thick if you think you're sloppy seconds! Tell me —please, _God, _tell me— I've done better by you than that."

He takes her by the shoulders. "Of course you have! I didn't mean … only that this is your thing, isn't it? Yours and Matthew's, and I oughtn't go inserting myself into it. That would be presumptuous."

Taking a leaf out of his book, she rolls her eyes. "Whom did Matthew seek out when he wasn't sure whether to propose to Mary? Not me! And whom did he ask to be his best man? And who's the first person he rings up to go have a pint when he's worrying himself silly about what sort of father he'll be? Need I remind you that you two were friends _years _before you and I were anything?"

"Alright," he concedes, hands raised in surrender. "You know I'd never say you missed your calling, but you're a loss to Queen's Counsel. There's no question as to the origin of Matthew's ability to persuade. Sure you've not been harbouring secret legal aspirations?"

She shakes her head. "Nope. I'm just the daughter of a dad who was a perpetual hard sell. But you're deflecting. Do I wish I could share this with Reggie? I'm not gonna lie to you; of course I do. But the way life has turned out is exactly what was supposed to be. If I hadn't lost him, I'd never have known you. You're the love I'm meant to have from now until forever." Taking his hand, she presses his palm to her heart. "You're a part of me, as much as this is." She closes her eyes, savouring his touch. "Now, follow the logic. If I'm going to be a grandmother, and you're my husband —the very _best_ part of me, then what does that make you?"

"Grandad?" he says with a proud smile.

"Precisely. And you're going to look _so_ good with that little baby in the crook of your arm." She leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth.

"That's what does it for you then, aye? Old grey Scotsmen with a soft spot for bairns?"

She shakes her head in the negative again. "No, you silly sod! _You. _Sexy and silver and soft-hearted, holding _your grandson. _You've no idea."

"I think you'd best enlighten me," he whispers, and, his hand not having moved from where she placed it, begins to stroke her breast with his thumb.

Her head lolls back, exposing the tender column of her throat, and he leans in and presses his lips to her pulse point.

"Jesus," she breathes, pressing closer to him, slipping her hands into his back pockets. She nuzzles her way along his jawline. "I've been wet for you _all day," _she whispers in his ear. "How's that for enlightenment?"

He roars in answer. "Come to bed, woman!"

She laughs in a deep, sultry way that sends every drop of blood racing straight to his groin. "I thought you'd never ask."

In a move so sudden she doesn't see it coming, he lifts her up off the floor, pressing her back to the nearest wall. "Who says I'm asking?"

"It's a good job I love you," she tells him even as she wraps her legs high around his waist.

"Bloody well right," he answers, and _oh!_ but she loves him wild like this. "And don't I know it!" His hands are under her bum and he grinds against her. She feels his desire, thick and hot and throbbing, and she aches to have him between her thighs.

"Hold on," he fairly barks at her.

"What?" she asks, distracted by the hot kisses he's pressing to her breastbone.

"Put your arms around me."

In the next instant he's moving, carrying her in the direction of their bedroom, stopping periodically along the way to kiss her with dizzying intensity. She clings to him, her hands fisting in his hair, her entire inner monologue consisting of, _Yes! Oh, Christ, I won't survive this … Don't stop!_

How he manages to set her on her feet again once they reach the bed, he'll never know. He is of two minds, wanting to pin her to the mattress and also to worship her with kisses and caresses and long, slow loving.

She reaches for his buttons and he pushes her hands away. "I want this to be for you."

She is mad with it, wanting him, but she's seen the faraway looks, the storm clouds brewing behind the clarion blue of his eyes. He's got an aim, a purpose in mind, and for his sake she's got to let him have it his way.

He kneels before her, undoing the button and zip of her jeans and peeling them down her legs. She holds onto his shoulders as he helps her step out of them. She's still got a hold of him when he presses his face into the mound of her pelvis.

"Richard!" she gasps, and when she looks down he's looking up at her whilst nuzzling his nose against her, breathing in the heady scent of lust.

He holds her gaze as he pushes aside the crotch of her knickers and his first two fingers slip against her folds. "Christ, you're soaking!" And then he's sinking those fingers inside her painstakingly slowly.

She keens in desperation, and he looks at her with a kind of predatory satisfaction.

"Yeah, beauty. That where you want me? You've no idea how much I ache to be inside you. Deep as you go, that's where I want to be." He is driving her to the edge of ecstasy with words alone and she's one continuous moan now; she can't hold it back.

Every time he thinks she's the hottest thing he's ever seen, she raises the bar another level. She's _raising _something else as well, and he's beginning to worry that his jeans are going to cut his circulation off. But it's not his turn. "Well, baby," he says, deliberate hot puffs of air against her sex, "we'll get there, but not just yet."

And then he's on his feet, moving away from her. "Richard!" she cries, instantly missing his warmth and feeling a fool, standing there in damp knickers with her knees apart.

But he's not left her; he's simply moved just beyond her reach and is stripping off his jeans and socks, his shirt and vest. She swallows hard, watching the flex of his buttocks as he moves. Then he's back before her, close enough to touch. So she does, wasting no time, palming the tight bulge in his shorts.

He should stop her, means to stop her, but dear _God _it feels good. She traces the shape of him, drawing a fingertip along the ridge, swiping her thumb over the head.

"Mine," she tells him, leaning in close like she's going to kiss him, trading breaths. But then he angles his head, ready to take her lips, and she moves out of range. "Just thought you could do with reminding," she murmurs, pressing hard into him once more, then dropping her hand.

"Alright, young lady, that's it," he hisses, and yet he's grinning. And so is she. "Arms up."

She does as she's bidden and he pulls her shirt up and gets it off her, and then he freezes, his mouth dropping open. Her breasts are enveloped in lace so sheer that the entire outline of her areolae, the dark peaks of her nipples are visible, nearly bare.

"Oh, darling. Oh, I … _wow. _Just … wow."

She giggles. It's a sign of wondrous things to come when she gets him talking so ineloquently. "Yeah? I had a hunch you might say that."

"You never cease to amaze me, beauty. Can I touch you? Kiss you?"

She is moved by the earnest expression he wears. It makes her feel powerful when he is like this, so completely in her thrall. Powerful, and yet also humbled. Who is she, that a man so kind and pure of heart, so brilliant and accomplished and _beautiful, _should be so singularly devoted to her?

She smiles brightly; she cannot help the bubble of laughter that rises up because_ now _he's asking. "Well I should certainly hope so! Otherwise it'd be an awful waste of money."

"Cheeky little minx." He grins, catching her about the waist, and she holds onto his biceps as he tumbles them onto the bed. She knows he's got her, that even if he didn't, the mattress would, but she gasps anyway. It's exactly what it felt like to step out into the abyss and let his love catch her after twenty years alone. To have such a tangible reminder is a halting thing.

He braces himself with one hand so that when they land he doesn't crush her. "Alright?" he whispers, pausing to appreciate the look of her beneath him: eyes wide, her chest rising and falling, lips kiss-bitten.

She nods, a slow smile spreading across her face. "Falling for you all over again." It would be a terrible pun if it wasn't so very accurate.

He groans long and resonant. It's a sound that puts her in mind of that feeling of finally getting into bed after a twenty-four hour shift. "Beauty," he sighs, "what you do to me."

She stretches up to kiss him and his mouth opens to her, his tongue slipping inside. Deep kisses, elongated in the syrupy haze of desire. When they break apart, he lifts her head, propping pillows behind her. He drops kisses on her forehead, her temple, her cheek. "I love you," he breathes against her skin, his lips ghosting over her shoulder; roving still, his open mouth pauses a moment where her heart beats. She winds her fingers into his hair as she watches him loving her.

"This makes quite a change from your single-girl bras," he says, smoothing his palm over her breast for the first time since undressing her.

"Yes, well." His touch is making breathing difficult. "You ought to be happy I didn't have anyone to buy this kind for."

He kisses her nipple through the lace and she can _see _it: his mouth full of her. "Yes," she whispers. "Darling, yes!" she cries. Such an intimate exchange, and him so breathtaking.

"Happy doesn't even scratch the surface. You know you could burn straight through our life savings buying these and I wouldn't even object. I'd just live …" he kisses the tender skin between her breasts, "... right _here."_

"Is that a fact?" She's panting. He's _killing_ her. She loves the things he's saying and wants him to shut up and take her already and wants this never to end.

"Mm-hmm," he hums against her flesh. Then he makes a discovery that thrills him. "Oh yes. You see, this was made specially with husbands in mind." He pops open the clasp that rests against her diaphragm, baring her breasts. "Oh, sweetheart." He never fails to be awed by this unveiling, as if it were the first time.

"You're too good to me," she tells him. The act of watching him look at her causes gooseflesh to rise and her breasts to tingle, a sensation similar to the feeling of fullness that would signal the need to nurse when she was breastfeeding.

_What a funny thing to think of at a moment like this._

There's no time to dwell on it; he's touching her aching flesh now, ever so gently drawing circles with the tips of his fingers, moving away from her nipples and then closer, closer, the edge of his thumb catching one engorged bud. "You make me feel so _good, _love!" she moans.

She's writhing, arching into his hands, her hips rolling against the mattress. The feel of her, the precious vulnerability as she gives herself over to pleasure, the beautiful broken cries … he is the guardian of her heart, and the way that she looks at him: dark, trusting, innocent eyes full of love and wonder. He might have been teasing a little before but he means it: he'd gladly live right here, in the meeting of her flesh and his mouth. She is _everything_ when she's like this. She is everything. She is _his. _

She protests when he moves away, but then he's trailing kisses over her ribs, her belly, making muscles quiver, making her feel warm and heavy. He lingers, frustrating her, fascinating her, his tongue dipping into her navel and finally _—finally— _his fingers creep downwards, nestling in the vee of her labia.

"More, darling, more," she murmurs, and his fingers slip down, hook in, her clitoris held in the gutter between them. His lips make a long sweep of the join of her hip and thigh.

_Oh, God. Ohgodohgod. _It's the only thought of which she's capable. She's voicing it, plaintively. _Wailing._ He cannot believe his good fortune.

He pulls back a moment to watch her, naked and perfect. Spread wide for him, flushed and _so open._ She of effortless elegance and impeccable decorum, sensuality repressed for untold years before he won her trust; she, the embodiment of wanton lust lying before him.

He traces a looping finger over her sex. Parting her lips with his thumbs, stretching her opening. Holding her there. "You're beautiful here. All pink and ivory."

In a corner of her mind she catalogues the words, briefly entertains the counter-argument that _no, _she's not. She's seen her own episiotomy scar and it was sufficiently horrifying as to cement her resolve to fight for every possible alternative before inflicting that upon her patients. But she's starting to believe, now, in his interpretation of her beauty. And in moments like this one, he makes it _so _easy.

And anyway, his mouth is on her now; she couldn't think if she wanted to. And she can see him kissing her, can _watch_ what she feels, and there aren't words in existence that would come anywhere close. She's on fire and he's the match. The sounds she's making are formless, nonsensical.

More heavenly than any symphony, he thinks. The taste of her, the scent. The hard-soft nub of flesh that swells under his lips, the flat of his tongue. Her hips stilling, breath drawing inward … ribs retracting … her entire body stiff and then …

_Bliss._ A rolling tidal wave of every good feeling sweeps over her, inundates her, tearing guttural cries from deep within her chest. And he's still kissing her. _There. _Pressing his palm to her belly, feeling the ripples right along with her, from both inside and out.

"Darling, darling, darling … I love you. I love you." Even if every single other facet of marriage disagreed with her, she would still subscribe to it for the sheer joy of saying those three words in the throes of orgasm and knowing they are safe. Permitted, even encouraged. Lauded. She could no sooner cease saying them to him than stop breathing.

They are face-to-face now, Richard holding himself above her, resting his weight on his forearms. He is heavy between her legs, their hips rolling together softly.

"Ohh, Major," she half-whispers, giggling, holding his face in her hands, "so good. _So. Good!" _When she draws him down to her lips, they both smile into the kiss. He groans deeply and grinds his hips, slipping against her wet folds.

"You want me, precious?" he murmurs, bringing one hand down to touch her, teasing her entrance with the head of his cock.

_Mmm-_hmm!" Her belly flutters at his words, the grit and longing in his voice.

"Yeah?" He strings her along another moment, feathery lips brushing her cheekbone. "Just like this?" He slips the head of himself inside her and then stops moving.

She growls, reaches down to grasp his buttocks, pushes her hips up hard. "Just get in me!"

"Young lady! Where'd you learn to talk like that?" He pretends to scold her as he slides home, drawing her leg around his waist.

She wants to answer him, give back as good as she's getting but, "Oh! My! God!" is all that comes out, barely a breath.

"S'deep," he drawls. He flexes his hips and she can't decide what moves her more: the disbelief in his voice or the adoration in his eyes.

"Yeahhh," she affirms, nodding her head against the pillow. He is moving in long, slow strokes so that she feels the entire length of him, and then he does something with his hips, a little twist at the bottom of the thrust, and whatever part of her he's touching, it's one she never knew she had. "Oh, God! Again like that. Please!"

It thrills him to see, to hear her surprise. That after a lifetime of lovemaking there are still things she hasn't done, hasn't felt, things _he _can give her. Her arms are thrown over her head and it pushes her breasts upwards; he is enthralled by the way they bounce each time he moves. He transfers his weight, guides her legs farther apart and holds her there, his hands pressing into tender flesh, the backs of her knees.

Every push forwards rams him against her swollen, sensitive front wall. He isn't even touching her, and she feels the edge rise up. _Again_. Her eyes lock on his gaze; he is _devouring _her and it makes her skin flush. "Richard," she keens. Loves the way his name feels, falling from her lips. "Kiss my breasts, _please!"_

He bends his head and she reaches out with one hand, threading her fingers into his hair. _Spun silver,_ she thinks. So much of it; so thick. It's longer now he's retired, and as much as she misses the clean-shaven look, she's discovered she loves this, along with the bit of beard he's grown.

And then he's following orders: all tongue, hard mouth suckling first one breast and then the other. And she's hissing, sucking air through pursed lips; his beard and the sharp edges of his teeth will leave her raw later but right now it's heaven.

He feels her start to squeeze him and pulls back a little, wants to draw her pleasure out until she just can't bear it, even as he fights the need to pound into her and lose himself. Instead he leans forwards, kissing her bared throat. "Just a bit longer, sweet girl. Can you feel me?"

"Ohh!" she groans in answer, deep and feral, her hands balling into fists.

He laughs, wicked and sexy, low in his throat. Her body squeezes him in response to the sound. "Yeah," he rumbles. "I felt that, beauty. You like it slow like this?" He twists his hips again in that way of which he discovered she is so fond.

"Yesss." She clenches her fists again, fingernails digging into the flesh of her palms. She is right there, perched upon the knife edge, and he's maddeningly seductive.

"You're so ready for it, aren't you, darling? Put your hands on me. Don't hurt yourself. Touch me, love."

Her heart thrills; her sex tightens. "Yes! Tell me. Tell me!" She wraps her legs around his waist, locks her ankles behind his back.

He rocks deep for a moment; he can't help it. "That's your kink, innit? Me talking to you when we're like this?"

She caresses his flanks. His skin is so soft here, and she thinks what an uncharted place it is, and how she must spend more time exploring. Touching, tasting. Learning what will drive him mad. "That sounds so …"

"Salacious, yeah?" His eyes gleam; he pulls out a little ways and then slowly rocks forward again.

She nods, tipping her hips up into his hands. "Downright dirty." How she is holding a conversation with him pressed against her cervix, she can't understand. But it's her; it's him. It's a part of their dance.

"That's what you are, precious. Flawless on the outside … and a little vixen between the sheets. Used to watch you walk the corridors in your white coat and get hard, knowing what I know." He moves his mouth to work her nipples again.

She gasps at his actions, his words.

"Like how I know you're holding it back with everything you've got, because I haven't said you can come yet. Breathe, Isobel. It's gonna be so good if you'll just breathe."

"Oh!" she cries, pulling him down, taking hold of his face. She bites his lip; he opens her mouth under his own. A deep, bruising kiss followed by countless tiny, nipping, raw ones. And then there is her, breathing in the breath he expels, and him over her, belly to belly.

"Look at you. You're perfection." He traces a fingertip over her labia, rings the base of his cock and she feels jealous; that's _hers _to touch. She's about to do just that when his finger casually brushes across her clitoris.

"Richard! _Please!" _she squeals. _Rightthererightthererightthere! _There is no room for air in her lungs. Their universe is him; throbbing, and her; oversensitised, feeling every pulsing beat.

His fingertip grazes the sweet spot again and he swivels his hips once more. "Now, Isobel. Come for me," he finally tells her, his voice all soft, eyes on hers.

She doesn't so much break as splinter. Like a drinking glass pushed off the side, crash landing on a hard tile floor, she explodes in tiny shards, needle-sharp. He moves in her all the while, against that deepest place, and in a far-distant corner of her consciousness a muted fragment plays on a loop: _Don't finish without me! Wait for me … wait for me!_

He is overwhelmed by the feel of her, rolling his hips to her rhythm. A rosy flush spreads across her chest and he bends his head to chase it with lips and tongue. As she begins to return to herself, he draws deeply of her breast, its peak hard as a Soor Ploom against the roof of his mouth and equally as sharp-sweet. "The taste of you," he murmurs against the rounded flesh. "The _warmth _of you, Isobel …" He's no idea if she can hear him, but he needs to say it. "All I want, my love. You're everything I want."

Indeed, it's all she can hear, his whispers as loud as a shout, and she pushes him —them— up and over till he's under her and takes him in hand. He's slick with _her_ and it sends tiny charges racing through her blood. She holds him firmly until she's taken half his length inside her again and braces her palms on his chest as she sinks down the rest of the way. She feels too much in the best kind of way: she thinks she must have melded with him, that she can feel _them _like he does, his pleasure as well as her own.

"You are beautiful, my husband." She falls forward and he catches her. Strong hands, surgeon's hands. Hands that save babies. Her breasts are crushed against his chest; he and she are breathing in synchrony, and she has never felt closer to him. Of course she has thought of it: the two of them, young and handsome, and love born of love, of their coming together like this. The bonny wee lads and lasses she would love to have given him, who'd have shared his fine features. Who would have been utterly cherished and thoroughly loved. But those thoughts are always chased away by the ones that tell her she's no right to want to give him that which was hers and Reg's to share.

Here in this moment, none of it matters. As he palms the globes of her arse, spreads her wide. As she moves on him. He arches up to nip at her breasts; she bends her head to take his lips. What they've got, in the autumn of their lives, is the stuff of dreams: all of the sex and none of the consequences.

It's always like this when she's on top. _Deep _and not _fast._ She wonders, has wondered, can it really be good for him. Enough for him, like this. By his closed eyes, the rhythmic grunting sounds he makes as she moves, the way his thumb worries her hip, she would say it is, indeed.

Dropping gentle kisses on his brow, she whispers softly, "Let go, my darling. It's alright, you can let go."

Just like her, he doesn't want it to end. But unlike her, he cannot hold it back indefinitely. And then she's there, taking care of it for him.

"Open your eyes, Richard." She sits up, her back straight, regal above him. She's lifting herself up and away and he misses her warmth, but then she takes him back inside her. Quicker, harder. "Look at me."

He fixes his eyes on the near-black pools of her own … and she squeezes him. Thoroughly. Deliberately. Repeatedly.

He swears brilliantly, his entire body drawn taut, hips arching up off the bed and into her hands. She holds him to herself, continuing her exquisite torture, and watches him go over. "Yes, darling! I feel you! So beautiful."

**oOo**

"You're not the only one has thought of it, you know."

They are naked beneath bedclothes that drape at their waists, a fire roaring in the grate. He cradles her body from behind, watching golden shadows flicker and dance across her skin. He has been caressing her aimlessly, his fingertips drawing invisible patterns on her arm, her hip, between her breasts. Absentmindedly his palm skims her lower abdomen, holds her there. When she speaks, he realises himself and promptly moves away.

"Richard, don't!" She feels bereft, and makes a noise of discontent that sounds more doleful than she thought she felt. Reaching back, she brings his arm around her again, replacing his hand. She leaves her own hand where it rests on top of his. She hears him, feels him sigh behind her, his forehead touching her shoulder.

"Why didn't you tell me, darling? Did you think I'd be cross?" She waits a beat for him to answer, but it's as if she knows he won't, can't; whatever the case may be. "I should have said ages ago that you're not alone.

"Have you thought of us together like this, me heavy with your child?" She squeezes his hand beneath hers. "Our baby, growing right here?"

Still he is silent.

"Because I have. I do. You don't think it crossed my mind? When we were in our forties and I knew what I felt for you. And it would've been a possibility, still, for most. Not for me, of course. But I wanted."

Finally he makes a sound, a gasp. "You … _wanted?"_

She turns in his arms. "Well I'm not _blind, _you know! You knocked me for six from the first time I laid eyes on you. From then on, every time we were in a delivery room together, I would watch you fighting for the tiniest babies, holding them in your arms … I saw a father in you. And yes, I wanted."

"I have," he confesses quietly as her arms enfold him. "I do. Does that make me horrible?"

She smooths her knuckles across his cheekbone, kisses the end of his nose. "I'd say it makes you human. I've been indulging in a great deal of self-flagellation over it, truth be told."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"I deserve that. Anyway, it's all absurd, getting in a lather over something purely hypothetical, that could never be. That's my point, really. We both know better, I should hope. But it didn't stop me from berating myself, because how dare I want with you what was Reg's to share with me? But I love you in the way that I loved him, so why wouldn't I want that with you? You see the predicament I put myself in? Round and round it goes."

"Yes, rather. Setting oneself up for failure, or at least unnecessary agony. A well-worn path if I'm honest."

"What I'm slowly starting to realise is that the way that I feel about a situation is neither good nor bad. It just _is. _I make it a blessing or a curse by the way I classify those thoughts. I suppose what I'm telling you is please, don't make it a bad thing. Because I think it's sort of … beautiful."

"I think you're sort of beautiful." He grins and ducks his head to nuzzle the rounded corner at the junction of her neck and shoulder.

She laughs low in her throat and cranes her neck to grant him better access. "Do you? I hadn't heard."

He watches her a long moment: the rise and fall of her chest with every breath, the way that her lashes brush her cheeks as she blinks, as her fingers run absentmindedly through his hair. Finally he tells her, quietly, "I couldn't forgive myself for wanting that when it nearly killed you several times over."

"Oh, Richard." She draws him down and presses her lips to the centre of his forehead. "I loved every minute of it, even if my body didn't. You're not wrong for wanting it, love. I'd have borne it for you time and time again if I could've done."

His head snaps up. "You would?"

She blinks at him, her eyes soft, their corners lifting as she smiles. "Of course. I've got it all worked out in my head, you know. One time through, anyway."

"You have?"

She nods, bites her bottom lip, looks unsure of herself for a moment. "Shall I tell you?"

He lifts her hand to his lips, kissing the back of it. The scrape of his five o'clock shadow stirs something low in her belly as she recalls how that friction felt elsewhere. She shivers; his eyes meet hers and they share a look. _He knows. _He shakes his head and murmurs, "Insatiable." Looks her over with a mix of love and want and wonderment. "I think you'd better."

"Well," she begins, lying back and folding one arm behind her head, "insatiability is rather the culprit. You see, in my mind's eye, I'm brave, and when you start as Chief of Neo I don't pretend that I don't feel for you. Love you. So we pursue one another, and it's fun that turns serious in short order. We're married inside of six months, and when we're not at work we're in bed."

He smirks. "I approve of this version of events."

She reaches up to touch the upturned corner of his mouth with her thumb. "I rather hoped you would. Now …" She frowns as she realises this dream of hers includes a bit of revisionism. "I would never erase Fiona from my past …"

"Of course not!" He presses his lips to the centre of her forehead.

"... But in my imagination I didn't lose … _everything … _when I lost her …"

"Oi. You're the one told me it's useless getting het up over theoreticals."

She eyes him levelly. "Touché. Anyway … I'm forty-five, you know, and well along the march towards menopause, so when my period goes AWOL for three months I don't bat an eye. You're the one who notices."

He chuckles, and she raises an eyebrow. "I'm just wondering how specific this gets," he tells her with a shrug.

"You're wondering how you know, and I don't."

He shrugs again and she shoves his shoulder playfully. "I'm curious about the tip-off."

"We both know you never miss a trick where I'm concerned. My breasts are fuller, so you say. I think it's ludicrous; I've tried everything short of an operation to make that happen all my life, and nothing. So I gave up long ago on that score. That bit is reality."

He leans up and over her. "Your breasts are perfection." To illustrate his point he bends his head to kiss each one. She tries to ignore the way her body responds.

"And you say _I'm_ insatiable," she sighs when he doesn't stop.

He pulls away suddenly. "I believe you were in the middle of a story," he deadpans.

"Oh!" She boxes his ears. "You are wicked. Get me all … and then …"

"I'm sorry, I don't think I understand how exactly I 'get' you."

"You most certainly do!" She huffs and presents him with her back, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from bursting into a fit of giggles and thereby giving herself away.

His lips begin at her shoulder, moving upwards, pressing long, sucking kisses along the back of her neck, taking her earlobe gently between his teeth. "Come on, beauty, tell me," he rasps.

Her shoulders shake, laughter breaking free. _"Frustrated! _Alright? If I had bollocks they'd be as blue as your eyes! There! Are you satisfied?"

He breaks into laughter as well. "I do hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me," he says, mockingly, then mutters, "even if you did bring it on yourself."

"I never did!" She affects a glare at him over her shoulder, even as she pulls his arms around her, effectively wrapping herself up in him.

"I was going to say I'll be such a good boy and keep my hands to myself, but you made that rather a moot point."

She turns herself towards him. "How will I ever make it up to you?" Her eyes are fixated upon his mouth, staring intently. She lifts her hand to the back of his head and draws him in with a press of her palm.

The tip of her tongue darts out to wet her lips and he groans softly. Either she has no idea how alluring she is, or she knows full well and is wielding it deliberately.

Her lips brush his and he knows conclusively it's the latter when the edges of her teeth catch his upper lip, and then she soothes the sting with a flick of her tongue. Her lips yield as he presses them open; his tongue sweeps across hers and her fingertips dig into his forearms. He gasps at the bite of her fingernails; she grins against his mouth. "This is," she whispers; kisses him —a breathy nip at his bottom lip this time—; continues, "as much your fault …" a press of her lips to the corner of his mouth, "as mine." She pulls back to watch his reaction with a teasing smile, brushing the pad of her thumb across his kiss-swollen lips.

He traps her hand at his mouth, kisses the digit, then places her palm on his chest. "Damn you, woman, you're irresistible."

She holds his gaze, a soft smile in her eyes, and then bends her head, replacing her hand with her lips. "It's mine, isn't it?" she queries. _His heart._

He cups her chin, palms her cheek. "Do you even need to ask?"

She shakes her head as it rests in his hand. "But I like to hear you say it."

He presses his lips to her forehead, skims them over the contours of her face. "Yours," he tells her, soft and solemn, and then takes her lips in a lengthy, searching kiss. "Only," he vows as their breaths mingle, before her mouth meets his again. "Always."

"Hmmm." A satisfied sound, a sound of assent. Of certainty. "I love you. I love us. I can dream of a hundred might-have-beens, and none of them touches what we've got. As wonderful as it sounds, our having a baby together, I wouldn't change a minute of this life with you."

"We get all of the fun without the responsibility," he agrees.

"Well, I was far less eloquent when the thought occurred to me, but yes. No sleepless nights …"

"Unless it's by choice."

She grins. "Rather. No mastitis, no spit-up in our sheets, no colic. No Caesarean recovery, which would almost certainly have been my fate, all things considered." She meets his eyes a bit shyly. "No waiting six weeks to make love."

He chuckles. "We'd never survive it!"

"I never thought Reg and I would either! Unfortunately, there's something else that happens on that score …"

"Oh?"

"Imagine you've not slept at all, and now you've got to be at the hospital for 6am. You'd be dead on your feet, right? But then, even when I was only on eight-hour shifts, I'd have to collect Matthew from my mum's. Nurse him. Bring him home, get him in the bath. Fix something for tea, nurse him again, cuddle him, try to put him down awake. Nine out of ten times that would fail, and I couldn't bear listening to him cry. So I'd end up nursing him to sleep, then waking up famished and bent double in the rocking chair. If I was lucky, Reg was home by then, and he'd reheat whatever bit of food I'd got together, and we'd sit together for a bit.

"He'd get up with Matthew, do the nighttime nappy changes and bring him to me, stay awake with me whilst I fed him. And he would hold me, massage my breasts. It was good. Sweet; private. But that was as intimate as things got for much of the first year. No matter how much we wanted it, there was seldom the chance, nor the energy. And you think that'll ease as they get older. It doesn't; it didn't. Matthew would be poorly and we'd put him down in our bed because it was easier on us all, or he'd have a nightmare and of course we'd never turn him away. And your heart is pulled in two directions: as a mother I have no regrets about those choices. As a wife, though … At least we talked about that, Reg and I. 'I worry that I'm putting you last,' was a common theme. And we'd always answer each other the same way. 'I know you love me. There were years that were just for us. We had them once; we'll have them again.' And we did have. But you see …" She trails off a moment, watching Richard, reaching out to trail her fingers down his chest.

"I haven't got to share you, or myself, with anyone. And I won't say that I don't love that," she tells him with a quirky, satisfied smile.

He presses her back so that he's half on top of her, gazing down. Running gentle fingers through her hair, the tips of them dancing feather-light across her face. She is all warmth, all soft. Smooth golden skin against his own. She is his to touch and love anytime. All of the time. He is her happy ending; she is his redemption song.

"Yes, I've realised a fair few benefits of this arrangement myself." He teases her in full knowledge of the consequences.

He is not disappointed. She shoves at his chest playfully, turning her face away from him, all faux ennui. And he dips his head, nuzzling the spot just above her collarbone too lightly, causing it to tickle instead of melting her.

"Stop," she nearly whinges. She looks up at him and they both collapse into giggles as their eyes meet.

"I love you," he murmurs, baldly. She can hear the emotion in his voice and not for the first time it makes her chest ache in a partly wondrous, partly terrible way.

She kisses her fingers, presses them to his lips. "Come here," she compels him, rolling onto her side again, facing away. She reaches back and brings his arm around her waist.

A wonderful silence passes between them. The kind that encompasses the complete focus of all of the senses upon the present moment. Soft linens; warm fire, logs crackling as they burn. Skin on skin, salty-sweet, the smell of sex lingering on them both, on the sheets. The quiet satisfaction of breathing together, sharing space, and of freely taking one's pleasure from the other's body, presence, essence. They doze intermittently; they touch with a hazy, protracted ease.

"You never did finish the story," he rasps, his lips lingering near her ear, expelling hot puffs of air on her skin, making her shiver.

He feels her laugh even before he hears it, contractions rising up from her diaphragm where his palm rests. "Can't fathom why not, can you? Anyway … you notice_ things._ And I'm in denial. Finally you corner me at work and make me take a blood test, and you're not wrong. At first we're too aware of all that could go wrong to be excited, but the first trimester passes without incident. I'm not even ill but a handful of times (which is pure fantasy, but I reckon I'm allowed that once in my life). We go through all of the testing …"

"Holding our breaths each time …" he interjects.

"No bloody kidding. But the other shoe never does drop. Week twenty arrives and the anatomy and gender scan reveals an absolutely perfect baby girl."

"And this is … what? A dream you had? A daydream?" He holds her so tenderly, counting each breath, every beat of her heart.

"It began as a dream, all those years ago, just after our first consult together in theatre. It's grown over time, both consciously and subconsciously. Even now …" she starts to say and then catches herself.

"You know you can't toss something like that out there and not finish it," he prods after a long moment of silence.

She turns a little, lying on her back, arms folded behind her head. He watches her, gratified not for the first time by her ease with him, the confidence in her own physicality.

"Alright." Her lips turn up at the corners and she regards him. "In my moments of wool-gathering, I've been found entertaining the image of you, asleep with our little girl curled against your chest."

"Oh, darling." How can he articulate all that he thinks, _feels _about this? A dream incongruous with this phase of life, but one they nonetheless share. The birth and death thereof, right here in their bed, wrapped round one another. "Is there any more? Have you worked out how she comes to us?"

She nods, moisture gathering in the corners of her eyes. _If only, _she thinks. _If only I'd been braver, sooner. If only I'd been __**whole **__for him. _The odds would have been a million to one against them, but so were the chances of them finding one another, and look how that turned out. So perhaps … Perhaps.

Finding her voice, she tells him, "I begin having contractions at twenty-eight weeks, and you insist that I stop working. They're only Braxton-Hicks but for once I don't fight you. Once again, because this is fantasy, and owing a great deal to hindsight, I actually take the time to soak it all in: slowing down, treasuring every kick. Enjoying your enjoyment of my body." She giggles wickedly, glances at him and then averts her eyes.

"What?" he demands jokingly, tickling the side of her ribs.

"Get off!" She elbows him, still laughing.

"Tell me!" He rubs his beard lightly against her neck.

She sits up, leaning over him, close to his ear. "The sex is out of this world," she breathes.

The gleam in her eyes. The slight pout of her bottom lip. She's going to kill him and he's all too keen to let her. "Great God, Isobel!" He swallows hard. "Is that how it was for you?"

"Mmmm." She grins enigmatically, leaning in again to whisper, "Always," and drawing out the _'s.' _

There is nothing for it but to pull her against him and tuck his face into her neck. "Isobel." Breath and sound rolling over the syllables of her name, conveying all he cannot put words to. _Joy. _Because they have one another; because fate has been kind to them. _Astonishment. _It could all just as easily have passed them by, and they'd have never known this moment, nor the countless others before it. _Passion. _Instead of fading away in their autumn, it burns_: _hot and pure and unadulterated. _Sorrow. _For the losses each of them has suffered and the chances that passed them by. _Gratitude. _For the opportunity to feel again, and indeed, feel so much, and the good fortune to have her with whom to share it all. _Love. _It crushes his chest, steals his breath, breaks his heart because it runs so deep, because she is so good and soft and vulnerable and strong … and _willing. _That her volition, which yields to nothing and no one, has bent towards him, blossomed all around him.

"Am I terrible for wanting to have had you like that?" he asks her finally, softly.

She looks at him resolvedly. "Well if you are then I'm just as bad for wanting you to have had me like that. And no. I feel no remorse whatsoever. When you love like we love —though I've half a mind to think no one's ever done besides us— it's a natural extension. A forgone conclusion."

"Be a nice epitaph, that," he says, looking thoughtful.

She looks at him sideways. "Okay, now that's just weird." She waits a beat. He raises an eyebrow. Then her face breaks. "I'm only taking the piss. It's a bit of a slap in the face to realise we're a whole lot nearer to epitaphs than babies, but you're not wrong. I rather think I'd like to be remembered as your forgone conclusion. 'It was always going to be.'"

"We're not though, love," he tells her even as he's thinking how much that statement rings true. "We've got ages. Ages and ages."

She gives him a pretty —if slightly wistful— smile. "Yes. Ages and ages." She doesn't quite believe it, but oh, how she wants to. Serendipity is a tenuous thing, fleeting and elusive. _But … _she thinks. _But no less significant for its_ _transience. _It's that hope she has always clung to, that truth the one which has carried her through the darkness.

"I promise I won't interrupt anymore if you'll tell me the rest of the story," he says. The atmosphere has shifted, become heavy, and he is feeling shaken. _Come on, Isobel, _he pleads with her in his head. _I don't know how to turn this around. _

"And I promise not to stray from the path again. I shan't blame you if you don't understand how we got here. Sorry about that." He may be interjecting a fair bit, but she's never been a linear storyteller.

He frowns. "Why sorry? I'm following just fine."

She kisses him. "Only you," she murmurs near his mouth. "I suppose we're equally guilty of going off the script. I love how it doesn't matter. Before you, I believed for such a long time that nobody understood how I think. I'm not quite sure what it says about you that you do …" At this he answers her impish grin with a playful tug of her earlobe, "... but it's such a relief."

"That goes double for me."

"Oh, Richard." _Thank God for you. You make it all so easy, darling, everything that was so hard. _"I make it to thirty-seven weeks, which is astounding, as you know, and the longest I've ever gone. I've dreamt of giving birth at home, because with you right there it'd likely be perfectly safe, but I know it terrifies you. So I let you bring me into hospital, but still it's just us, and midwives and nurses we know and trust."

"I'd much rather take you into theatre …"

She watches his face, the expression of rapt attention mixed with fear. "But I feel certain I can labour and we agree that so long as the both of us can tolerate it … It's long, as labours are, and I nearly call for backup when I realise I've put you in an unfair place. The father at war with the physician …"

"But I won't have it any other way. No one else knows my wife, my baby the way I do …" His eyes are so solemn, so full of adoration and hope and she knows _—she knows— _that this is why she's here, to see him in this moment, this way.

She can't help the tears that spill over, splashing with a wet _plop _onto the pillowcase. She has lived this bit before, knows the struggle and the sanctity involved. "And so you're lying beside me one moment; monitoring our vitals the next, and you're so masterful about it all. It's the most moving thing I've ever seen. Just when I thought I couldn't love you more. And it's you doing all the awful, invasive checks … but it's _you _who gets to tell me it's time to push; you're the one who sees her head crown. And just when I think I can't do it anymore, she's in your arms, and then on my chest in all her wriggling, wet, bloody, _beautiful _glory. And then you're there, leaning down to kiss me, all three of us crying. The midwives take over and soon enough I've been up and showered and we're all in bed, and you're holding me as I nurse her for the first time."

"We never did settle on what to call her, seeing as I wanted to name her for you (I know I'm not original on that score, but)—"

"—And I maintained, as I do now, that that's wretched and self-aggrandising."

"Says the woman who called her son Matthew Reginald."

"I didn't say it was wrong when it's somebody else! Just me!"

"Because that makes so much sense." He rolls his eyes spectacularly and it makes her laugh.

Her expression goes from animated to heartbroken in less time than it takes to blink. "But I had the privilege of naming my daughter once, whereas you were robbed of that opportunity …"

He picks up her hand, raises it to his lips. As he kisses the back of it, a teardrop falls from his eye and lands just beside where his mouth meets her skin. Embarrassed, he avoids her eyes as he asks, "So when I tell you I want to call her Mairead Isobel …?"

She tilts his chin, gently but unquestionably demanding he look at her. "I tell you that it suits her perfectly."

"She's got your colouring," he says decisively.

"And your high cheekbones," she adds. "And no hair at all but for the finest, downy blonde fuzz. And as she gets a little older it's clear that her eyes are yours."

"She's so lovely, so precious because she's a part of you—"

"Of _us," _she interjects.

"Yes; a part of us, but it's the fact that she came from _you _that straightaway makes me feel that protective fatherly instinct rise up. I would kill for her, die for her, and not think twice about it." He goes quiet, a faraway look in his eyes. She watches him. Loves him. Feels like her chest is not big enough to contain her heart in this moment.

"Ah, Isobel," he sighs after some time. "We missed a trick, didn't we?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'd say that every moment we were meant to have together, we've had, with dreams to spare for anything we might've missed." She picks up his hand, twining her fingers through his. "You're _everything, _Richard. I want for nothing with you." Her _eyes. _Her beautiful, soulful eyes, so sincere. "I mean it," she adds, unnecessarily, but so very much like her.

**oOo**

It's late, but they whiled away the afternoon in bed and so it would appear that they're having the day backwards. So when she tells him she wants to start painting the nursery at ten o'clock at night, he shrugs and tells her there's no time like the present.

At half past midnight he's rolling a coat of lemon yellow onto the wall when she pauses, the brush with which she's painting the trim still in her hand, and looks at him. "Nan," she tells him.

"Pardon?" He sets the roller down carefully and comes to stand at the foot of her stepstool.

She takes his proffered hand and lets him help her down, grateful of the break. "I'll be _'Nan.'" _She steps back to look at her work and nods in satisfaction. "It's what I called my mother's mum. She was only forty-seven when she became a grandmother. And it'll be easy for him to say whilst he's still only tiny."

He looks her over, wiping away a dab of white paint at her temple with the pad of his thumb. She's pulled her hair into a loose ponytail and wisps of it have escaped to frame her face prettily. There are many women inside of his wife. The doctor; the mother; the dreamer. The soon-to-be-grandmother. The lover. His eyes sweep over her form appreciatively. Stood there in jeans, one hand in her back pocket, she's not even trying and she takes his breath away.

"Does it look alright so far, do you think?" She ceases surveying the room and meets his eyes at last. The interior decorator.

"Outstanding," he answers. It's not the paint he's looking at, and she blushes under his gaze. _"'Nan' _then, aye? I like it," he tells her, his arm coming round her waist. "It's _you."_


End file.
